


I See The Light

by dametokillfor



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-25
Updated: 2014-11-25
Packaged: 2018-02-27 00:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2672093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dametokillfor/pseuds/dametokillfor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trapped in a tin can at 30,000 feet is exactly the place for Damon and Stefan to have awkward conversations about jealousy and unrequited love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I See The Light

**Author's Note:**

> Title from I See The Light, from Tangled. (Frozen, schmozen.)
> 
> The flight time between Portland and Richmond is 5 hours, 15 minutes, and I feel like we were most definitely cheated out of some brotherly bonding time. This is my first time really writing Stefan, so I hope I've done him justice. :)

"Why don't you just date Ric?"

They're on the plane back from Portland. Alaric is sleeping soundly in the seat between Stefan and Damon, his mouth hanging open as he leans back against the headrest. Damon had been resisting the urge to flick the complimentary peanuts into his mouth, because he's such a good friend. (And because he'd been so grumpy when he'd done it on the flight out). He's thankful for his willpower now as he gets the feeling he's going to need to throw them at his brother.

"Don't start, Stefan." He warns.

"He's hot." Stefan starts, "He puts up with you, wait, what were your other reasons for me dating Caroline again?"

"That's different."

"Because you and Ric have been flirting since you guys first met, and you might actually be good together?" Stefan offers.

"Like you and Caroline?"

"You're deflecting."

"So are you." Damon rolls his head, looks across at Stefan with a big obnoxious smile.

"Well I wasn't the one who acted like a complete jerk when my big schoolgirl crush mentioned his girlfriend." Stefan replies.

"You seem weirdly obsessed with the idea. Maybe you should date him." Damon suggests.

"No, I’m not the one who goes after people my brother's into."

Damon glares across at him, "Low blow, brother."

Stefan shrugs, "You should think about it at least. You and Ric would be good for each other."

"Like you and..."

"Can't hear you over the sound of your denial!"

Damon rolls his eyes, looks up at the little screen in front of him. It's playing some heavily edited blockbuster from a few months ago. Damon had been half watching it to begin with, but the formulaic plot and irritating headline actor had caused him to tune out.

"Ric was the first person to call you his friend in Mystic Falls. Everyone still thought you were a dick for so long. Hell, most of them still do now." Stefan reminds him, distracting him from the actresses charming fumble. "Ric would defend you. You killed him, you killed his wife, and he would still defend you."

"Because I have the best bourbon. Because I'm a damn good wingman." 

Stefan throws a peanut at his brothers head, "Because he cares about you, idiot. You always made a big deal out of always being second choice for everyone, but you were never Ric's second choice, and now you're pushing him away. Compulsion? You think he's not going to hate you for that?"

"Seems only fair after what he did to..." Damon doesn't even get his sentence out before Stefan throws another peanut at his head. Damon throws one of his own back at him, being careful to avoid the window. He's seen what Elijah can do with pennies, doesn't want to bring a plane down with oversalted peanuts.

"How do you know I'd even want to date him anyway? You've never seen me with a guy before." Damon cuts in.

Stefan snorts, "Please, you think none of us figured out you and Enzo? Or you and Elijah?"

"So you and Klaus then..."

"Deflecting." Stefan sing-songs.

"Ditto." Damon retorts in the same tone.

"You don't get that jealous and that pissy unless you like someone." Stefan points out, "Even Ric noticed it."

"So what do you want me to do? Tell Ric that he's making a huge mistake with Samantha and that he should throw all that away because you have some notion that I'm in love with him?"

"I never said you were in love with him." Stefan says, "Are you?"

Damon turns away from Stefan, gestures to the flight attendant. He puts on his most winning smile and asks for another glass of bourbon. She smiles back, all white teeth, far too friendly to be real. She squeezes his shoulder and announces she'll be right back with it. Damon watches her go.

"That was some next level deflecting."

"We're on this plane for another four hours, I don't really want to have this conversation sober." He says, into the aisle before he turns to look back over at Stefan, "Especially when Sleeping Beauty might wake up at any time."

The flight attendant returns with his drink, wearing a smile the entire time. Stefan wonders how exhausting it must be to pretend to be happy all the time, if she ever wants to let it slip and just punch the crap out of the people around her. He hopes there's someone around her that she can just be herself with, a boyfriend, girlfriend, someone important in her life who she can be grumpy with. (He resolutely ignores the fact that his first thought about that person in his life is of Caroline).

"When you left with Klaus, that summer, Ric and I had a thing." Damon admits, with a heavy sigh.

And suddenly Stefan feels like the worlds biggest jackass.

Damon always goes after what he wants, why would Ric have been anything different? It makes perfect sense that they'd been there and tried that.

"It wasn't anything serious." Damon continues, "When he found out I wasn't dying anymore from the werewolf bite, he came and found me, punched me for even thinking about dying, then kissed me,"

Damon smiles to himself, "Then hit me again for trying to make him kill me."

That surprises Stefan. He'd never have expected Ric to be the one to make the first move. 

"Because we were going around the country looking for you, we were around each other all the time. We'd reach another dead end, and we'd end up drinking in a cheap bar. We'd get drunk and fall into bed together in a shitty motel."

"So what happened?" Stefan asks, almost afraid to hear the answer.

"It ran its course." Damon says, wrinkling his nose distastefully at the plastic cup his bourbon is in, before taking a drink from it, "It was never going to last, Stefan. He was mourning Jenna, I was his rebound. He had the kids to take care of, one of whom I was still hung up on. We were just letting off some steam, nothing more."

Stefan imagines there's a story there. He can't imagine two people like Damon and Alaric, passionate as they both are in their own ways, just deciding  _well that was fun, but lets stop now, okay?_  He almost wants to ask about the end of it all, what did it, why they stopped something that Damon obviously still misses. Was Damon more involved in it than Ric was? Did Ric get jealous that Damon was still chasing Elena?

"So no, Stefan, Ric and I wouldn't be great together. Ric and I sucked together." Damon says, "So we're just friends, and that's great for us. We're happy as friends."

He spits out the last part of the sentence, as if it pains him. Stefan looks over to him, sees him staring into his glass, before necking the last of his drink.

"I slept with Klaus once." Stefan offers, his way of apologising for dragging up painful memories for Damon, offer one of his own. "It was in the 20's, back in Chicago. I had seen him flirting with another man. I was jealous that somebody else had caught his attention so I drained his new friend. I presented him with his head as a romantic gesture and it just happened."

"So what happened? Why didn't that become some grand love affair?" Damon asks, and Stefan supposes he deserves the sarcastic tone.

"It wasn't for me." Stefan shrugs, "I didn't want Klaus, but I didn't want him to be interested in anyone who wasn't me. I liked the power I had over him, what I could get out of him. We had fun, but I'm not really interested in men."

"Wow, Ripper Stefan was a total gold digger."

"Yeah, well he wanted me to look pretty, thought the old man deserved one little thrill." Stefan says, with a smile, one Damon shares. "Wait, do I need to give you a big speech about being okay with you being bi right now?"

Damon groans, "If you do, I'm going to eat the flight attendant." 

"Because you know I'm completely cool with it." Stefan says, "And gay marriage is legal in Virginia now, so if you met Mr Right..."

"I'm also going to eat the pilot."

"I understand if you want to wait til the spell is lifted on Mystic Falls, so we could have the ceremony at the boarding house."

Damon flings a handful of peanuts at Stefan's head. His aim is off so he manages to hit Ric with a few of them, waking him up. Stefan's laughing, even Damon is grinning.

Ric looks between the two of them, looks at the nuts sticking to his chest, "Wasn't this the reason I sat between you two in the first place?"

"He started it." Damon says.

"Well, technically you were born first..."

"Okay, I'm going to the bathroom while you two bicker." Ric announces, getting up from his seat, "I'm not sitting through another four hours of this."

He climbs across Damon and heads down the aisle. Stefan can't help but watch as Damon watches him leave. It's almost as if he can't let him out of his sight after the years they were apart again.

"If you talk to Ric," Stefan starts.

Damon's head whips round, murder in his eyes.

"I'll talk to Caroline."

Damon stares through him for a long moment, icy blue eyes daring him, begging him to take it back. Stefan doesn't back down, meets his stare head on. 

"I've already told you it didn't work. What makes you think it's going to be any different this time?"

"Now you both know how hard it is without each other." Stefan answers, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world.

Damon mulls this over in his head for a long moment, "And you'll tell Caroline that you might actually want to spend your undead life with her?"

Stefan doesn't see the point in trying to explain to Damon that he's still completely confused about his feelings for Caroline, doesn't need another helpful list of reasons of why she's so incredible (he already knows, how could he not?)

Instead he nods, "I'll talk to her."

Damon just looks at him, dips his head in acquiescence, "Okay."

"Okay."

It takes all of a second before shy Damon becomes obnoxious asshole Damon again, "Ooh, you could talk to her about having sex with Klaus. Compare notes."

"I have missed something huge, haven't I?" Ric says, pausing by their chairs.

"Just the time my little brother indulged Klaus' boner for him." Damon helpfully fills him in, as Ric climbs over him to get back to his seat, "Didn't Klaus let you in on that when he mindjacked you?"

"If he did, I've repressed it, but thanks Damon, I'm never going to be able to get that image out of my head."

Damon slaps Ric's thigh, squeezes it, "You're welcome, buddy."

\---x

Stefan drifts off somewhere around hour three. Damon and Alaric were bickering over something happening in the movie they're watching, and Stefan doesn't need to hear about how it's way too convenient that a raccoon can understand every word a tree creature says.

("It's sci-fi, Damon."

"It's entirely unbelieveable." 

"Says the _vampire_.")

When he wakes up, the announcement is coming over the speakers that they'll be landing soon, tray tables need to be returned to the upright position, and seatbelts need to be fastened. He rubs at his eyes sleepily and looks across to Damon and Ric.

He'll deny being touched by the sight that greets him for the rest of his immortal life. Damon has fallen asleep, his head lolling on Ric's shoulder. Ric's head is back against the seat, eyes open, looking down fondly at him. His hand is linked loosely with one of Damon's, stroking the knuckles.

"You two talked then?" Stefan asks.

"You and Damon are really loud when you argue." Ric tells him, "How am I supposed to sleep when you're arguing over me?"

"So you heard everything?"

"I woke up next to him one morning, late in the summer." Ric tells him, "And he was drooling on the pillow, mumbling something about robotic penguins. I wanted to push him off, tell him how disgusting it was, but then I also realised I wanted to wake up to that stupid face for the rest of my life, and I freaked out. I slept with a barmaid at the next place we stopped and made sure Damon knew he was just a convenient fuck."

Stefan wishes he had an answer for that. He never expected Ric to be the one to screw things up. 

"We'd get married in Boston." Ric continues "My parents would never forgive me if I got married - again - away from home."

Stefan smiles, "I'm happy for you, Ric. And him. Begrudgingly."

Damon yawns, lifts his head off Ric's shoulder. The smile on his face when he sees Ric's still holding his hand, sees that Ric is still there, still smiling back at him makes Stefan's heart clench. How did he never see how much they cared before?

He misses that, misses seeing someone look at him like he's their whole world. He finds himself thinking about Caroline again, about everything he's missed. Does she look at him like that?

"Your turn now, brother."

　

**Author's Note:**

> The story Damon tells Stefan is my actual headcanon for their relationship on the show.
> 
> Come flail with me on [Tumblr](http://hannibalaric.tumblr.com)!


End file.
